Watch Netflix’s eerie first trailer for Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events is coming to your televisions on 13 January 2017 – an aptly spooky date, when you consider the fact that this will be the first unlucky Friday 13th of the new year.

And, to celebrate the announcement, they’ve decided to unveil the show’s first trailer, teasing exactly what we can expect from the TV adaptation.

Based on the books by Daniel Handler – writing under the pen name Lemony Snicket - the story is set to follow the Baudelaire orphans after they move in with the evil Count Olaf (Neil Patrick Harris).

And, much like the books did, Patrick Warburton, in his guise as Snicket, has listed all the reasons why viewers should not watch the series when it hits their Netflix library next year.

He explains: “The story of the Bauedlaire orphans is so upsetting and so utterly unnerving that the entire crew is suffering from low morale – a phrase which here means ‘currently under medical observation for melancholia ennuis and acute sitfulness.”

However, if you listen carefully, it seems as if one person on the crew is more than happy to be involved in the tale of misery and despair…

Watch the trailer for Lemony Snicket’s Series of Unfortunate Events for yourself below:

Snicket ends the teaser with a heartfelt plea.

“Please don’t make the same mistake that Netflix has and look away before this dire tale is even filmed, and avoid the cruel whimsy and whimsical cruelty of what’s to come,” he begs.

Superman’sMalina Weissman will take on the role of Violet Baudelaire, Barbarians Rising’s Louis Hynes is set to play her brother, Klaus, and Academy Award winner Joan Cusack will star as Justice Strauss.

“Please don’t make the same mistake that Netflix has..."

The Daily Show’s Aasif Mandvi will also be on hand to help bring the dark comic children’s fairytales to life.

It’s already been confirmed that the show is set to provide a much darker retelling of the books than the Jim Carrey film of the same name, not to mention a far more detailed account of each tale; all 13 books of the Unfortunate Events series will be covered, taking up two episodes each.

The initial season will cover the first four books; The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, and The Miserable Mill.